Fired from MBO – A True Story with a Happy Ending
Eric Rosenthal writes:
All Right! I’ve just been fired by MBO!
Here’s my personal MBO story. It has a happy ending. Kind of.
December: I book a job with Motion Theory for January. After accepting I learn that I have to go through MBO for payroll which will require a 2.25% fee off the top of my paycheck. I tell MBO to f— off and decide to incorporate.
January: My accountant tells me forming a C-Corp or an S-Corp is not worth the extra time and money. I reluctantly go with MBO. All is well until…
February: The people at Motion Theory start getting their paychecks (about a month after starting work) and see that their take-home pay with the fee and taxes is about 50-60% of what it usually is. Most of us have student loans and all of us live paycheck to paycheck. I get really mad and post a derogatory comment on one of MBO’s youtube videos. They call me immediately asking for feedback (?).
I start the anti-MBO group on linkedin, but few people from Motion Theory want to join, most of them are too scared of being blacklisted or just apathetic. However I do get some people from other companies to join.
Mid February: My job ends. I get my first good night’s sleep in weeks.
Late February: I get my first paycheck from MBO. It appears to have no money taken out. I try to log in to MBO’s web site and find out my account has been deleted.
Early March (Today) I talked to Motion Theory about my check and find out that MBO fired me without telling me!! I guess I was a liability 
Motion Theory will pay me directly for my latest job without any money taken out of my check, which is always nice.
Mid March: Motion Theory wants me for some work. However my only choice is to C-Corp or S-Corp (they won’t allow LLCs), and for now it’s a complication I’d rather not get into.
I call MBO because I need a record of my invoices. The lady I talked to is polite and wants to learn about our industry. I learn that MBO was started by freelancers and isn’t used to being the bad guy. They are currently weighing on weather or not to continue to work in our industry.
Final Thoughts: MBO is not evil or out to get us. However they are not here to help us either; they want to expand their business and make money like any company. They’re more like a symptom of some of the problems happening in our industry rather than the root cause.